It is a few year late, however the Barbie Cellphone is finally here. That is not a smartphone, however a clamshell-style function telephone that is all pink and branded with Mattel’s Barbie brand. The handset has a shiny mirror on the entrance and a bunch of equipment like charms and gem stickers to trick it out so you possibly can totally take pleasure in that late Nineties and early 2000s nostalgia. It even blurts out, “Hello Barbie,” once you energy it on.
This can be a actual collaboration between Mattel and HMD, the corporate that used to make Nokia-branded smartphones. It is a part of HMD’s pivot to crafting its own smartphones together with function telephones developed in partnership with notable corporations. That features The Boring Phone from earlier this yr, born out of a bizarre tie-in with Heineken.
The Barbie Cellphone runs KaiOS, an working system designed for feature phones that provides just a few smartphone capabilities, like 4G connectivity, Wi-Fi, GPS, and entry to apps together with WhatsApp, Google Maps, and YouTube. It’s going to nonetheless really feel such as you’re utilizing the Symbian working system from Nokia telephones of previous, simply with trendy facilities.
{Photograph}: HMD
By default, HMD’s new flip telephone could make calls and ship texts. The corporate is on a little bit of a campaign about decreasing display time and distractions, so the thought is to make use of this telephone as a second telephone when you do not need to be pinged whereas kicking it on the seaside with the Kens.
HMD is hardly the primary to construct a product round this idea of unplugging from the always-on life. There have been just a few like-minded telephones through the years like The Light Phone or the redesigned Palm from 2018. Of the same thoughts are the app timers and different screen-time discount options which were constructed into Android, iOS, and even the function telephones HMD made beneath the Nokia model identify just like the Nokia 3310.
Suppose Pink
The surface of the Barbie Cellphone’s lid has a reflective end that serves as a mirror (keep in mind the LG Shine?) with a hidden digital clock embedded within the center. Flip it open and also you get a pleasant 2.8-inch show. You need to use the built-in backlit keyboard to textual content, and there are a bunch of tiny Barbie-themed tidbits right here and there, just like the palm tree icon across the quantity seven. And by my depend, six Barbie logos—whether or not it is the total textual content or simply the letter “B.”
It is powered by Qualcomm’s 215 chipset, has 512 megabytes of RAM and 4 gigabytes of storage with help for microSD playing cards as much as 32 gigs in measurement. Sure, you need to use it as an MP3 participant and groove to “I am Simply Ken” by way of Bluetooth or the three.5-millimeter headphone jack. HMD claims the 1,430-mAh battery—which can be pink—gives a chat time of roughly 3.8 hours in 4G (6.3 hours in 3G), nevertheless it’s onerous to say what that interprets to in common use. It recharges by way of USB-C with, you guessed it, a pink charging cable.
